“I Don’t Know My Way Around Here Anymore”: Representations of Loss of Home in Novels and Memoirs by Contemporary East German Authors
| dc.contributor.advisor | Klebes, Martin | |
| dc.contributor.author | Lehmann, Tobias | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-02-24T20:30:30Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2025-02-24 | |
| dc.description.abstract | In this dissertation, I analyze how contemporary German-language literature by authors from East Germany expresses the theme of losing one’s home. I explore whether and how they process their experiences of loss during the Wende through their writing. To achieve this, I conduct a close reading of three novels that address the loss of home following the unification of Germany: Neue Leben and Simple Storys by Ingo Schulze, and Wie es leuchtet by Thomas Brussig. Additionally, I provide necessary context by drawing upon personal narratives from two memoirs: Zonenkinder by Jana Hensel and Eisenkinder by Sabine Rennefanz.In Neue Leben, I analyze the letters of the protagonist Enrico Türmer to his sister, his friend Johann, and his fiancée Nicoletta. These letters, written in the first half of 1990, are published and annotated by an editor who pretends to be Ingo Schulze and is interested in Türmer, who has disappeared without a trace. Wie es leuchtet is based on individual plot strands developed separately from one another, which come together in a mosaic-like arrangement, creating a snapshot of German transformation. Brussig mixes fiction with actual events and individuals, bringing to life an essential part of the loss of home in Germany. In Simple Storys, 29 seemingly uncomplicated narratives reveal the collapse of an entire world in small everyday incidents. Ingo Schulze depicts the loss of his protagonists’ home, taken by surprise by world history, with precision, humor, and empathy. For Jana Hensel and Sabine Rennefanz, unification meant less a newly acquired freedom than a state of ‘metaphysical homelessness.’ In their memoirs Zonenkinder and Eisenkinder, they describe their childhood in the GDR, which was marked by uprooting and social change. The main contribution of this dissertation is to contextualize novels about the Wende and the loss of home, allowing for comparisons and highlighting intertextual references that have not been previously analyzed in this way. This dissertation contains literary representations, symbolisms, figures, and references that have not been coherently linked and conceptualized in interdisciplinary terms in previous studies. | en_US |
| dc.description.embargo | 2027-02-17 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1794/30484 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | |
| dc.publisher | University of Oregon | |
| dc.rights | All Rights Reserved. | |
| dc.subject | Conceptions of Home | en_US |
| dc.subject | Germany | en_US |
| dc.subject | Ingo Schulze | en_US |
| dc.subject | Post-Unification | en_US |
| dc.subject | Thomas Brussig | en_US |
| dc.subject | Transformation | en_US |
| dc.title | “I Don’t Know My Way Around Here Anymore”: Representations of Loss of Home in Novels and Memoirs by Contemporary East German Authors | |
| dc.type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation | |
| thesis.degree.discipline | Department of German and Scandinavian | |
| thesis.degree.grantor | University of Oregon | |
| thesis.degree.level | doctoral | |
| thesis.degree.name | Ph.D. |
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